Which of today's newest shipping technologies will triumph over the long haul? Here are our best guesses

Everyone is a trend watcher. But at a certain point, to determine which trends will actually weave their way into the fabric of business computing, you need to first take a hard look at the technologies that gave life to the latest buzz phrases.

That's the idea behind InfoWorld's top 10 emerging enterprise technologies of 2011. We're every bit as excited as the most vociferous pundit about big changes in the direction of enterprise IT, from the consumerization of IT to infrastructure convergence. But what actual, vapor-free technologies have emerged that enable these big ideas to take shape? That's InfoWorld's stock in trade.

Among the host of enterprise technologies shipping but not yet widely adopted, we think the following 10 will have the greatest impact. Our selection criteria are subjective rather than objective, derived from many years of evaluating products in the InfoWorld Test Center, observing the ebb and flow of the industry, and taking stock of what appeals to enterprise customers. In other words, this list is based on the collective judgment and experience of InfoWorld editors and contributors, not some magic formula.

Except for the purposes of example, we have for the most part avoided specific product descriptions (visit the InfoWorld Test Center for that). We're focusing on technologies rather than their specific product implementations frozen in time, simply because technology evolves so quickly.

You may not agree with our picks -- in fact, given the contentious world of IT, we'd be surprised if you did. So please post your thoughts in our comments section (Add a comment).